Myrlie Evers–Williams - Infinite Women

Born: 17 March 1933, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Myrlie Louise Beasley

The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).

As the first National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) field secretary in Mississippi Medgar Evers (1925-1963) worked to end racial violence and improve the quality of life for black Mississippians. Evers and his wife Myrlie established the NAACP office in Jackson, Mississippi in the mid-1950s. Medgar tirelessly led marches, prayer vigils, voter registration drives and boycotts, and persistently appealed to blacks and whites to work together for a peaceful solution to social problems.
In the early 1960s Evers orchestrated a major boycott of white merchants which made him a target of the Ku Klux Klan, but he was undeterred and continued his efforts for racial justice. Backed by federal troops, he also led efforts to help James Meredith successfully integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962.
Despite threats against his life and property, Evers continued his work, but an assassin’s bullet ended his life a few weeks later outside his home. After her husband’s death, Myrlie Evers (now Evers-Williams) emerged as a civil rights figure in her own through her work with the NAACP and later established the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1995, she became the national chairwoman of the NAACP, a position she held for nearly three years.
Myrlie Evers-Williams worked tirelessly for decades to see her husband’s killer brought to justice and in 1994 — 31 years and three trials later — the man who killed Medgar Evers, Byron De La Beckwith, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.